Enter Hezbollah

WHAT will it be next? First it was the Jamaatu Ahlis-Sunna Liddaawati Wal Jihad, aka Boko Haram Islamist sect; then the Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan better known as Ansaru, both Nigerian grown terrorist groups. There were also talks of Al Qaeda infiltration and support for these two groups, and now an element of the Lebanese Hezbollah has been discovered in Kano, northwest of Nigeria.

Not to be overlooked is the Ombatse cult of Lakiya, in Nasarawa State, which is alleged to have ambushed and massacred about 60 policemen and security operatives recently. In this season of violent affront to the sovereignty of Nigeria, which group will pose the next challenge?

This must be the question in the minds of top government officials and the military hierarchy as they grapple with their latest terror challenge. On May 30, the Joint Task Force (JTF), the 3 Brigade of the Nigeria Army in Kano and the State Security Service (SSS) discovered a large cache of arms in the bunker of a house belonging to some Lebanese businessmen in Kano. Some of the Lebanese named in connection with the arms include Mustapha Fawaz, co-owner of the popular Amigos Supermarket and the Wonderland Amusement Park, both in Abuja. Others are Fauzi Fawad, Abdullahi Tahini and Talal Roda. Nigeria’s security apparatus has determined that the arms belonged to the Lebanese Hezbollah group’s cell in Nigeria that targets Israeli and American interests.

According to army spokesman, Brigadier-General Ilyasu Isa Abba, the haul of weapons consists of different arms and ammunition which include: 11 anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank mines, a rocket propelled grenade (RPG), 21 RPG missiles, 17 AK-47s, two sub-machine guns and 76 grenades.

While we commend the joint security team that made this catch, we shudder at the thought that this quantum of arms and ammunition could be smuggled into the country and buried underground in the heart of a city the size of Kano. From the rusty nature of the lethal articles on showcase, it suggests that they had been stored for quite some time. Are there other bunkers? There may be other ‘terror cells’ operating out of Nigeria. That is unsettling indeed.

Though Nigeria’s security agencies have pronounced the suspects as members of a cell of the violent Hezbollah of Lebanon, we hope that would not be a cover for unscrupulous foreign arms merchants who profit from massive importation and sale of arms to terrorists, robbers, cultists and sundry miscreants. We urge Nigeria’s security agents to look deeper to ensure that what may be a purely criminal enterprise does not find an escape route under the cover of international politics and regional agitations.

Having noted all that, we wish to point out, as we have done several times before, that what have been unfurling before us in the last few years are security lapses arising from poor understanding and management of Nigeria’s internal security over the years; not to mention failure of leadership. Government must realise that in today’s world, security is paramount in every sovereign nation and even if all else fails, our security system must remain intact and unassailable.

We urge government to take a holistic approach to the matter in order to revamp, overhaul and restructure Nigeria’s entire security system. As currently structured, the country is too porous, prostrate and pliable; her security agencies are ill-trained, ill-equipped, easy to compromise and rather anachronistic for this age. The huge arms haul in Kano is yet another wake-up call for urgent action.